Complainant against former MLA Jeet Mohinder booked for forgery

In a curious turn of events, while the Chandigarh police have already sought cancellation of an FIR of fraud registered against former Congress MLA-turned-Akali leader Jeet Mohinder Singh Sidhu, the Punjab police have booked the complainant in the case, Raman Uppal, for forgery at Mohali.

The case in Mohali has come about as Uppal, who had filed the Rs 60-crore fraud case against former Talwandi Sabo MLA Sidhu and seven others, has been found not to be a director of the company on whose behalf he had filed the complaint. The prime allegation is that Uppal had got the FIR lodged against Sidhu and others to grab Rs 231 crore worth of property of the company, namely International Customer-Related Management Services (ICRMS) Private Limited.

Sidhu, who had resigned from the Congress and the Vidhan Sabha weeks before the Lok Sabha polls to join the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), was specifically charged with having sheltered the co-accused. He was a Congress MLA when booked in September last.

For now, the court has asked the UT police, which filed a cancellation report, to take another look at the case.

THE MOHALI CASEThe bigger story is unfolding in the FIR registered by the Mohali police against Uppal, on a complaint by Narinder Singh, a coaccused along with Sidhu in the Chandigarh FIR.

Narinder, a resident of Ludhiana and an 'actual' director of ICRMS, has alleged the Uppal, pretending to be a promoter-director of ICRMS, fraudulently gave 'power of attorney' to certain persons to act on his behalf.

Using one such 'power of attorney', Deepinder Singh Dhaliwal had lodged an FIR in 2012 against the company's directors; while former Tamil Nadu-cadre IAS officer Gurnihal Singh Pirzada used another to file the September 2013 FIR against Sidhu and others — both in Chandigarh. So far, the FIR is against Uppal.

THE TRAILThe matter came to its current position following a recent hearing of the 2012 FIR filed by Uppal’s man Dhaliwal in Chandigarh. The Registrar of Companies gave a statement before the judicial magistrate (first class) in that case in January, saying: "As per our record… in the company incorporated on June 18, 2011, Raman Uppal never remained a promoter or director of ICRMS. And he has never done any correspondence with our department."

After getting this on record, Narinder moved an application to Mohali police for FIR against Uppal.

The matter is in Mohali as the company's offices and properties are there. Economic offences wing of Mohali police found that "Uppal did all this to usurp the properties of ICRMS... Pirzada and Dhaliwal were also involved and they must be probed."

Acting on the report and legal opinion, Mohali police registered the FIR on Tuesday.